


write words in the sand

by RonnieSilverlake



Series: divine bones [4]
Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Buried Alive, M/M, Major Character Injury, OT3, Polyamory, Whumptober 2020
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-08
Updated: 2020-10-09
Packaged: 2021-03-08 04:27:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,806
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26899672
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RonnieSilverlake/pseuds/RonnieSilverlake
Summary: When Gavin and Nines are buried alive by the serial killer they've been chasing, thinking of the people waiting for them on the outside gives them hope to hang in there until they're found.Except, it's not quite that simple.(Whumptober day 4 & 5:buried alive, rescue)
Relationships: Connor/Gavin Reed, Connor/Upgraded Connor | RK900/Gavin Reed, Upgraded Connor | RK900/Gavin Reed
Series: divine bones [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1959496
Comments: 14
Kudos: 106





	1. Chapter 1

Gavin wakes to the aftertaste of bile on his tongue, stale air, a flickering, dim light over his head, and the blinding blood-red of his android partner’s LED.

He makes some sort of noise in the back of his throat and attempts to sit up, but Nines’ hand is instantly on his shoulder, pushing him back down. “Take your time,” the android says quietly. “You have a concussion and a fractured tibia.”

“What?” Gavin hears his voice as if it’s someone else speaking; it’s high-pitched, frantic. He can’t really feel anything in his legs, but as soon as he tries to move them, knife-sharp pain shoots up his right knee, making him wheeze, tears springing to his eyes. “What the fuck—?”

Nines’ hand is a steady weight. It anchors him, lets him draw a breath through the pain, until his mind clears a little. As he looks around, he realizes he’s seeing his own car’s interior—and nothing past the windows.

“We’re—underground,” Nines says. “Buried.” His voice is still quiet and even, as if he’s wholly unbothered, but the light in the side of his head spins continuously, a pulsating, bloody scream that doesn’t make it past his lips. “ _He_ got us.”

Gavin’s still sluggish brain takes a moment to process this. It doesn’t take that much brainpower; they’ve been working on this goddamn serial killer case on and off for months; first just the pair of them, then Hank and Connor jumped in to lend their hand, even Fowler got involved. And with the two state-of-the-art android detectives on their side, they were making headway with the evidence, too, beginning to narrow down the suspect pool.

Well, here’s their reward.

Gavin doesn’t really need to ask for clarification; he knows the MO, knows there will be a ransom call, untraceable even for an android. A reasonable sum, probably—the killer never makes a demand his victims cannot pay. Gavin only wonders if ‘reasonable’ here takes into account his stupid billionaire half-brother.

Fuck if he knows whether Eli would even want to pay for him. They haven’t talked in years.

What he does ask, though, is, “How the shit did he get _you_?”

“Some kind of a cattle prod,” Nines replies, sounding ashamed. “It electrocuted you, and scrambled me enough to start an entire defragmentation process and hard reboot. By the time I exited stasis, we were both here. And you were bleeding quite badly.”

Gavin pushes himself up into a sitting position. He takes the earlier advice and does it slowly, but he sits up nevertheless, taking a moment to take a good look at his leg. Nines seems to have wrapped it with things he found in the first-aid kit Gavin keeps in the trunk, as well as— “Is that your shirt?”

Nines nods. Blinking at Gavin for a moment, he tugs down the zipper of his jacket to show his partner he isn’t wearing anything else underneath. Gavin huffs a laugh at the odd sight.

“So, what now, tin can? You got any coordinates for us, or a way to connect to Connor wirelessly?”

Nines shakes his head. His LED spins even more viciously; Gavin can hear some kind of whirring sound that alarms him, making him push himself even more upright, and reaching for his partner. “Hey, c’mon. Don’t fuckin’ self-destruct on me, okay? My remaining hours will be shitty enough down here without having to spend it alone.”

Nines’ only response is burying his face in his hands—but at the same time, he does take in a deep, cooling breath, and Gavin hears the whirring recede, Nines forcing his stress level lower until the spinning light dips into a golden yellow.

Gavin sighs and leans against his partner, resting his head on Nines’ shoulder. “Well. This fucking sucks, doesn’t it?” He doesn’t really expect an answer. “You think Connor can find us in time somehow? Though I guess _you’ll_ still be alive either way…” Nines tenses so much it feels like he becomes a statue, his shoulder rigid under Gavin’s cheek. “Sorry,” Gavin mutters, patting the back of Nines’ hand.

The mention of Connor starts a deep ache in the middle of his chest that has nothing to do with any of his injuries. The pair of them have been together for nearly three months at this point. It’s been the wildest ride of Gavin’s life, and he was just beginning to relax into the relationship and admit it to himself that he’s—

 _Fucking hell,_ he’s in love, okay?!

And now he’s sitting in his own would-be grave, having never said that out loud. Fantastic.

“Hey, Nines?” he says after a few minutes’ pause. “You got anyone waiting for you out there?”

Nines looks at him for a long moment. Gavin cannot quite decipher what he might be thinking. In the end, all he says is, “No.”

In any other situation, Gavin wouldn’t push—but what does he have to lose? “Oh, go on,” he says, bumping his shoulder into Nines’. “We’re partners, right? You can trust me.”

Nines’ LED dips into red for a moment again. “No,” he says again, but it comes out a little staticky—nearly scared, Gavin thinks, his brow furrowing as he tries to wrap his mind around the conundrum. “No, as in, that’s still your answer, or no you don’t wanna trust me?” he asks, irritation laced into his voice.

“I don’t have anyone,” Nines says quietly. “However, I have faith that Connor will find us, so anything I might say thinking we’re going to die here is moot.”

Considering the other has a supercomputer for a brain, this should be relieving to hear—that he thinks their odds are good enough. But Gavin is made of sharp edges and a mountain of frustration, and he cannot resist poking again, as if this could distract him from his own hurting leg and his regrets. “Sounds to me like you don’t trust me. Want another partner when we get outta here, tin can?”

Nines makes another sound that’s like a malfunction any not like anything Gavin has ever heard. It scares him. “Hey, hey,” he says, raising his head from the other’s shoulder and trying to search for his gaze. “I was joking, alright? You don’t have to tell me what’s bothering you.”

Nines closes his eyes. “I have someone I _wish_ was waiting for me,” he says in a low voice. “But it’s not going to happen, whether I get out of here or not.”

“Why not?” Gavin asks.

Nines pauses for a moment, searching Gavin’s gaze as if wanting to make sure he’s absolutely ready for hearing whatever it is he’s about to say. Then he finally replies, quiet and resigned, “Because he’s here with me.”


	2. Chapter 2

Precious long seconds pass in silence, with Gavin staring at Nines like he’s seeing him for the first time. The interior lamp overhead flickers again. Gavin has half a mind to just switch it off, but the idea of plunging them into full darkness makes his heartbeat speed up, his palms growing clammy at the reminder of just how deep underground they probably are.

He refocuses his attention on the other, watches as his red LED spins another frantic pirouette. “Are you satisfied now?” Nines asks, his voice impassive. “I don’t expect anything, here. You don’t even have to respond.”

Gavin knows him better than to fall for this. “Fuck you,” he says plainly. “Don’t shut off before I get a chance to even _think_ about it, okay?”

“There is not much to think about,” Nines says, quiet, resigned. “I don’t want to come between you and Connor. I don’t—I don’t truly want anything.”

“Bullshit.” Gavin is as eloquent as ever. He shifts a little; somehow, this conversation is giving him _comfort_ in an odd, kinda shitty way; his adrenaline begins to bleed away, and he’s beginning to realize exactly how fucked up his leg probably is beneath the haphazard bandage. “If you can feel love, you can feel _need_ , too. You’re allowed to want things, Nines.” He pauses for a moment, then adds, a little more quietly, “Can’t promise I can give you what you want, but wanting itself isn’t bad. I wouldn’t hold that against you. And neither would Connor.”

“I want—”

Nines opens his mouth, then closes it again, his throat working as he swallows. “I thought I just wanted what you two have,” he confesses then. “But I want it _with_ you, too.”

“With… me?” Gavin asks cautiously. “Or with us?”

Nines’ voice comes out glitchy for a moment, laced with terrified static. “The latter.”

Gavin lets out a sigh. After a moment, he leans against Nines’ side, pressing his forehead into the side of the android’s shoulder.

“I can’t make any promises without discussing it with Connor,” he says slowly. “But it’s—come up before, kinda. I don’t think he’d be against it.”

He’s not sure _he_ would be all for it, but—now that it’s out in the open, _if_ they survive, Gavin can think about it more. For now, he leans more of his weight on his partner, both because he’s exhausted and in pain, and because no matter what, Nines is still his trusted partner.

And the pair of them are buried underground, waiting for a rescue that may never come.

“Any luck contacting Connor?”

Nines shakes his head slowly—then he freezes for a moment, his mouth parting slightly. “I might have an idea.”

Gavin Reed wouldn’t have thought his life might turn out this way one day. As he watches Nines explain the way he can amplify his own brainwaves (or whatever the fuck he is saying, Gavin doesn’t understand half of it) using the car’s built-in devices, he recalls the conversation he had with Connor, and he already knows where this is going to go, if they ever get out of here. Once, he would have decked whoever thought to insinuate that he would fall in love with an android. Today, he’s contemplating falling for _two_ , and doesn’t even feel bad about it.

When Nines tells him that he managed to send a short burst of a message to Connor, with GPS coordinates, no less, Gavin wraps his arms around his partner’s neck and presses an impulsive kiss to his cheek.

When Connor and Hank (with most of the DPD at large behind them, plus a pale-as-whitewash Elijah Kamski) dig them out from the quarry, Gavin makes sure to tug Connor into a kiss, before he promptly passes out.

When he wakes in the hospital a few hours later, only to find his brother half-asleep in the chair next to his bed, and he learns from him that two androids are waiting outside, he begins to think that, in the end, they’ll be okay.

**Author's Note:**

> Find me at [New ERA](https://discord.gg/GqvNzUm) to yell about Reed1700 (or any other pairing)! <3


End file.
